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Showing posts with label easy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label easy. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Yogurt!

Greetings!

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend. i have been a busy little housedyke... Today I am going to talk you through my favorite project from this weekend... Homemade Greek Yogurt!


it is so easy! Mine turned out perfectly, and I didn't even have a thermometer!

all you need is a gallon of organic milk, (can't be ultra-pasteurized) and a little container of plain yogurt. oh, and a crock pot and some cheesecloth :)

heat up the milk in your crockpot until JUST before the boiling point. then take the crock out and set it on the counter until it is lukewarm (around 108 degrees) then add the yogurt in and mix well. put the lid on the crock and wrap it in towels, placing it into the oven with the light on to keep it warm (around 100 degrees) if your light is broken like mine, then turn the oven on to warm for a couple minutes right before putting in the yogurt. let it sit overnight (8-12 hours) to thicken, then pour it into a collander lined with 4 layers of cheesecloth sitting in a bowl, and stick it in your fridge for 3-4 hrs to thicken. Then pull it out and twist up the corners of thee bag, squeezing out the whey. Tie a string just below wher the bag is twisted, and set it back in the collander. Put a coffee mug in the bowl and set the collander on top so it is held above the liquid, and put it in the fridge for another hour or two. When you pull it out, the yogurt should have decreased in volume by half. Just scrape it into a container with a spatula, and keep it in the fridge for up to a week. I like mixing mine with honey, and flax meal, and stawberries :)...yum!

tips: save a cup of your yogurt to use as starter for nex time. also, don't throw away your whey...it has tons of uses!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Vegetarian, Gluten-Free Spoony Lasagnas!

My least favorite part of the day 
is trying to decide what to make for dinner.  There are those times where this hour becomes especially bothersome, where there seems to be a severe lack of ingredients in the pantry.  Rather than give up and demand that we go out for dinner, I decided to use the meager remains of a few random items in the fridge before they went bad (I hate wasting food.)

Here's what I had:

a handful of wilted baby spinach
about a cup of cottage cheese
a half-jar of spaghetti sauce
shredded cheese
parmesan
4 broken gluten-free lasagna noodles

What I did:

Cooked the noodles to al dente.
Layered the ingredients in the following order in a muffin pan (oiled)-

piece of noodle
spoonful of sauce
spoonful of cottage cheese
a few spinach leaves
sprinkle of cheeses
piece of noodle
spoonful of sauce
sprinkle of cheeses


Cooked 'em at 350 degrees for 20 minutes


Scooped 'em out and ate 'em!

While this may seem like a lot of work just to make what came out to be the equivalent of a 2-person lasagna, there were just not enough ingredients to use even an 8"x8" pan.

...and they're just plain adorable, no?